The present invention relates to railings, and more particularly to an improved railing assembly in which a panel such as a glass panel is mounted vertically above a floor support surface by a base assembly.
A structural glass rail system includes a series of vertical glass panels with bottom edges that are secured to a floor surface by a base support assembly. The top edges of the glass panels may support a top rail or handrail. The transparent or translucent glass panels provide an attractive appearance that is desirable to architects and designers as well as owners and users of commercial spaces and homes. However the appeal of structural glass rail systems has been limited by the difficulty and cost of installing known systems and the costs and inconvenience of repairing a damaged or marred glass panel after the initial installation. There is a long-standing but unfilled need for a structural glass panel rail system that is easy to install, relatively inexpensive, attractive and easy to repair.
In a typical known structural glass panel system cement is used to hold the glass panels in place. A receiving shoe is secured to a floor directly or by means of a support angle bracket. The shoe includes a pocket for receiving the bottom edge of a glass panel. After the shoe is in place, the groove is sealed and a glass panel is placed into the pocket, often on top of rubber spacers that hold the panel above fasteners or sharp edges that could cause breakage. Other spacers and/or wedges are used at the sides to center the panel in the groove and to hold it in a vertical position. A quick setting cement is poured into the groove in the shoe in a two step process. After cement partly fills the groove and sets, the wedges or spacers are removed, and the filling of the groove is completed in a second step. A cover or caulking is used to cover the cement and provide an acceptable appearance. The installation requires much skilled labor and time. Leakage and spillage of wet cement is a problem because it is difficult to completely seal the groove. Stairs and inclines add to these problems. In order to replace a panel, it must be broken out and the remaining edge and cement must be extracted with tools.
In order to overcome the many difficulties of poured concrete systems, two part mechanical bracketing systems have been proposed. U.S. patent RE 28,643 discloses a railing system including a structural receiving member that is fastened to a floor or is received in a formed slot in the floor. A mounting bracket having a channel is connected by fasteners to the receiving member. The edge of a glass panel is secured in the channel by an adhesive. The structural integrity of this rail system depends on the adhesion of the panel in the bracket groove and upon the attachment of the mounting bracket to the receiving member. Because the attachment of the panel to the bracket is very critical, this assembly is not done on site, and the panel is typically pre-bonded to the bracket in a factory operation. This adds to the expense and limits flexibility of design. Because the attachment of the bracket to the receiving member must be strong and secure, a large number of fasteners are required to hold the mounting bracket on the receiving member. This adds to the expense and increases the complexity and time required for installation.
A principal object of the present invention is to provide an improved railing system of the type including structural flat panels such as glass panels. Other objects are to provide a railing system that can be installed quickly and without special tools; to provide a railing system that can be assembled on site without the necessity for factory pre-assembly operations; to provide a railing assembly that does not require concrete and does not require fasteners for holding parts of the assembly together; to provide a railing assembly that is attractive in appearance and that is not expensive to make or install; and to provide a railing assembly that overcomes disadvantages of known railing systems.
In brief, in accordance with the invention there is provided a railing system including a railing support assembly for mounting a vertical glass panel above a floor surface. The panel has a peripheral edge and opposed planar side faces. The railing system includes an elongated base with an elongated support channel defined in the base. The base includes a pair of side walls and an end wall defining a generally U-shaped cross section of the channel. The channel has an open mouth. A wedge member is adapted to be mounted at a bottom edge of the panel. The wedge member has a base portion flanked by a pair of leg portions spaced apart by a distance generally equal to the thickness of the panel. The channel and the wedge member have mating tapered shapes with the open mouth of the channel being the widest part of the tapered shape of the channel and with the base portion of the wedge member being the narrowest part of the tapered shape of the wedge member.